Rock Picks: Raveonettes, Amebix, Thorns of Life

THE HEAD CAT, MISS DERRINGER AT THE ROXY

At heart, Lemmy Kilmister is an old rockabilly-loving Teddy Boy, which isn’t that strange when you realize that many of the late-’50s Teds in Britain evolved into Lemmy-like leather-clad rockers in the ’60s. Hearing Mr. Kilmister’s acoustic rockabilly-roots trio the Head Cat may come as a shock to fans used to Motorhead’s supersonic locomotive rattling and punk-metal intensity, but his lovably craggy vocals have a certain amount of gruff charm on their 2006 CD, Fool’s Paradise. It helps that he’s backed by former Stray Cats drummer Slim Jim Phantom and Danny B. Harvey (the Lonesome Spurs, Wanda Jackson, 13 Cats), who brightens Lemmy’s acoustic strumming with tastefully scintillating electric-guitar licks. These Cats dig classic rockabilly songwriters like Carl Perkins (“Matchbox”) and Johnny Cash (“Big River”), but they really love Buddy Holly, covering almost a dozen of his tunes on Paradise. Harvey also plays with openers Miss Derringer, who combine singer Liz McGrath’s ’60s girl-group melodramatics with a noir-ish rootsiness on their 2007 EP, Black Tears. Her guitarist-husband, Morgan Slade, churns up retro guitar chords on the title track, with McGrath sounding a little like Deborah Harry. McGrath is perhaps better known locally as an artist-sculptor who specializes in gory imagery, but Miss Derringer’s music is ultimately more sugary than blood-stained. (Falling James)

Simon Birk

Morning After Girls

Related Content

• RIP George Jones: The Story of How He Learned to Sing
  April 26, 2013
• Bobak Ferdowsi: The JPL Mohawk Guy
  May 15, 2013
• Watch L.A. Grow With This Time-Lapse Map
  May 14, 2013
• The 20 Greatest Metal Albums in History: 20-11
  January 29, 2013
• Music Picks: Rhye, Papa and Motörhead
  May 9, 2013

More About

• Chromeo
• George Jones
• Amy Ray
• Knitting
• Arts and Crafts

Also playing Friday:

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE, ARIEL PINK, LUCKY DRAGONS at Henry Fonda Theater (see Music feature); O.A.R. at Club Nokia; LUDACRIS at Bridges Auditorium, Claremont Colleges; JAY REATARD, EARTHMEN & STRANGERS at the Echoplex; ADOLESCENTS, THE CROWD, WHITE FLAG, LOS CREEPERS at the Knitting Factory; JON BRION at Largo; VERY BE CAREFUL, BUYEPONGO at the Mint; DEPARTMENT OF EAGLES, CAVE SINGERS at the Troubadour.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 24 

THE SPANKS AT THE PUKA BAR

The Spanks are another local garage band in a city full of garages, and while there’s nothing terribly original about their blend of mid-’60s rock and early punk, they write catchy, simple songs that are simply catchy. “Told You So” stops and starts smartly with Daisy Spanks’ jack-rabbit guitar riffs and Nikki Spanks’ rollicking drums, while singer-bassist Scotty Spanks chants his way through “Black Fuzz” as he dodges the feints and jabs of Livingston Spanks’ appropriately fuzz-overdriven lead guitar, which sounds like it would fit right in on a Nuggets compilation album. The way Scotty and Daisy trade off vocals on “I Gotta Know” is simply infectious, much like how “Arundhati Roy” moves from its surging guitars and peppy verses into a supremely poppy call-&-response chorus. “Let’s make love in the afternoon, yeah, just like the hippies do/Let’s smoke pot and it’ll mean a lot, yeah,” Daisy sings with a nimbly rapid-fire delivery on “Hippie.” The track’s references to 1967 and free love are kind of ironic, considering that the band’s look and style largely predate the Summer of Love. Seldom has a song about the hippie generation sounded so wonderfully out of date. 710 W. Willow St., Long Beach. (Falling James)

THE RAVEONETTES AT HENRY FONDA THEATER

Like the Jesus & Mary Chain, Danish duo the Raveonettes take simple, retro pop-rock song structures and drape them in ridiculously lavish amounts of reverb and echo to make them sound eerily new. On their 2007 album, Lust Lust Lust (Vice Records), Sune Rose Wagner surrounds partner Sharin Foo’s breathy-dreamy vocals with solemn guitars and shadowy atmospherics to bewitching effect on “Hallucinations.” Similarly, Foo’s childlike vocals sweetly contrast the cottony fuzz-noise of “Dead Sounds” and illuminate the ghostly entrails of fog that shroud “Black Satin.” Of course, when they layer their songs in so many sound effects, there’s a risk of making everything sound hollow and tinny at the core, which is the main drawback of their chief inspirations, the Jesus & Mary Chain. There’s a lot of impressively mysterious cloudiness on the surface, but both bands don’t rock as solidly on the bottom end. Not only do the Raveonettes borrow heavily from the J&MC’s sound, they even nick much of their imagery (the title of “You Want the Candy” sounds like a parody of the Reid brothers’ lyrics). When the Raveonettes toured here last year, Sharrin Foo was pregnant and temporarily replaced by her look-alike sister Louise (“Will work for Foo”), so tonight’s return engagement should be more satisfying all the way around. (Falling James)

Also playing Saturday:

ALL OR NOTHING HC, BRUISE VIOLET at Chucho’s Justice Center, Inglewood, 1 p.m.; COMBICHRIST at Avalon; TAPES ’N TAPES at El Rey Theatre; PITBULL at Club Nokia; THE KRIS SPECIAL, PECULIAR PRETZELMEN at Echo Curio; JOEY ALTRUDA’S CLASSIC RIDDIMS, VIERNES 13 at the Knitting Factory; THE UNTOUCHABLES at the Mint; WEST INDIAN GIRL, JULIETTE COMMAGERE at the Roxy; ANIMAL COLLECTIVE at the Troubadour (see Music feature); CHUPACOBRA at American Legion Post 206, Highland Park; THE BINGES, PSYCHOSTAR, ANGUS KHAN at Silver Factory Studios.